Bonkers Squad Ep2: Toon up your guitars
by deadlegato
Summary: Shortly after the incident with Bubba, Jitters receives a similar strange package containing a guitar. Is someone out to get Bonkers' friends?


"Hey little hombre, it's time to close up for the day," Tony called to the back of his food truck as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Tony was on the heavy side, a Hispanic man who had actually been born in Ohio, but had played up his family heritage since moving to California to open 'Tony's Tasty Taco Truck.' Tony barely even spoke any Spanish beyond a few phrases and words, but he was fond of calling his best employee 'little hombre.'

In the back, a small yellow Toon dog named Jitters was cleaning the grill. He had to have stilts strapped to his legs in order to reach it, but that didn't seem to bother him. He was also wearing giant blue rubber gloves. "I'm already on it, boss!" he called back.

Tony laughed. "When are you going to get that you can call me Tony?" He took a sip from his drink before going to help Jitters put things away. "You know, I was kind of hesitant to hire a Toon, but you do good work."

"Thank you, sir. I used to work in food carts… but… it just didn't work out for me," Jitters said with a sigh. It wasn't so much that he couldn't handle it. It was that no matter where he went, Bonkers would find him and destroy his cart. Every single time, Bonkers.

"Well can I say I'm not sorry because if you still had your own cart I wouldn't have my little pal helping me here?" Tony laughed. "Or is that mean?"

"No, sir, I don't find it mean at all," Jitters responded in his timid little voice.

"And please, one more time, call me Tony!" Tony laughed as he put the vegetables back in the fridge. "Hey, you got a gig tonight?" Tony asked.

"Y-yes, I do." He was shy about his side job.

"Hey, that's a gig every night this week. Poor me, you're gonna get famous, and I won't have my favorite cook anymore. Woe is Tony!" he sighed dramatically, pretending to swoon.

"W-Well, sir, if I get famous, perhaps I could do a commercial for your truck…"

"Hey, hey, I don't want to get TOO famous. Ruins the indie vibe I got going on here. You go out and have yourself a great time, though. If you ah, need to call in a little late tomorrow cuz you hooked up with a pretty lady Toon after the concert, I'll forgive you," Tony said, giving Jitters a few nudges with his elbow.

Jitters turned orange, since when he blushed the red would combine with his yellow skin and fur. "Sir, I-I'm s-sure that-"

"Oh, Jitters, I'm joshing you! You keep working for me and I'll force a sense of humor into you yet," Tony said, patting Jitters' shoulder. "Break a leg, you lucky dog!"

Jitters wouldn't consider himself a lucky dog. Not since he had the misfortune of being assigned to work with Bonkers. Even though their show had been off the air for years, Bonkers still found ways to make his life miserable. Destroying his food carts repeatedly was only one of those ways. Things were looking up for Jitters, though. He could hide in the back of the food truck during the day, hopefully safe from any Bonkers-related catastrophes (pun intended.) At night, he put on his disguise, picked up his guitar, and headed out to play.

But on that particular night, before he could get into his tiny apartment to change into his costume, one of his neighbors waved and called to him. "Hey Jitters, a courier left your package at my place." She was an older, thin Toon stork, wearing glasses and a shawl. Jitters met her husband after Bonkers 'helped out' when the baby-delivering storks went missing. Her husband still worked for the service, which left her alone most of the day. Combined with her being around most of the time and her being a stork, any packages for the entire building tended to get left at her apartment if the occupants weren't home.

"P-package?" he said nervously, eyeing it. It was quite a big package, wrapped in plain brown paper. "But I didn't order anything… and I didn't tell anyone I was living here. Is it… is it from Bonkers?" he asked in a cold whisper.

"Nope, says it's from a fan," she said, reading the label. "I didn't think to ask the courier for more information."

Jitters went from nervous to nervous and confused. "A fan? How would any fans know to find me here? I-" he paused. "Wait, I DID tell someone I live here! I told Alex, last night!" he cried happily, taking the package. "Alex must have sent me something."

"Alex is the gorilla girl who works at the same club as you, right?" the neighbor smiled.

She and Jitters had a few casual conversations, although they were hardly close friends.

"She's the bouncer," he said. "Thanks for holding onto this for me!"

"Well, you water my plants when I'm gone visiting my grandchildren, so I figure it was the least I could do." The two nodded to each other, then retreated into their respective apartments.

Jitters set the package down and tore into it. As he removed the last of the packaging, he gasped. "It's… it's… it's a Taylor for Toons!" he cried out loud, hefting it out as if he'd just found Excalibur. "The only acoustic guitar specially made for Toon hands! How… how could Alex afford something like this? I can't accept a gift like this. I have to give it back. I have to-" He looked up at the clock. He had to get ready to go or he'd be late for his gig!

When he was out performing, he transformed into the "Ten Gallon Toon." A white ten gallon cowboy hat sat perched comically above his large yellow head. He wore dark sunglasses and a white fringed cowboy jacket. To top it off, he added white cowboy boots with lifts to make himself seem taller. Yes, it was completely over the top, but the audiences seemed to respond to it, and it went with his philosophy of 'if Bonkers can't see me, Bonkers can't torment me.'

His intention was to talk to Alex about the guitar that night, however, it turned out Alex wasn't on shift that night. It wasn't that he missed her. Alex was impossible to miss. She was a tall purple Toon gorilla who always wore a variety of pink and purple flowers tucked behind her ear. She loved to wear pink and purple outfits as well. A few times he had seen her in blue, but she usually stuck to her two color scheme. He even went as far as to check with other friends who worked there, but they told him Alex had unfortunately had to head north to help her mother with something. She'd told them to tell Jitters how sorry she was to miss his show.

Jitters found himself wondering if she'd sent the guitar as an apology for missing his show. It was an awful expensive apology gift, though. Well, he figured, he should play it. It would be quite rude to Alex not to, when she'd sent him such a lovely present. It sounded amazing from the first time he touched his paws to it. Even just tuning it (no pun intended) it was amazing.

The following morning was a busy morning for everyone. Jitters was sleeping in until he started his shift at ten, having had a very successful night out at his gig. Perhaps THE most successful night of his musical career.

Miranda and Bonkers were waiting for the new arrivals at the airport. Bonkers was spinning around on top of the squad car with the tip of his tail flashing blue and red and making a 'wooga wooga' siren sound. After a while, he broke into a break dance routine, still making the sound, still flashing his tail, and still on top of their squad car. Various people were standing around, taking cell phone videos of the routine. It wasn't often they saw an orange and black Toon bobcat with ears that looked like golf clubs break dancing on a police car. "BONKERS!" Miranda finally snapped.

He flinched back, ears folded down. "Oh… Bonkers… I'm sorry… I…. my sister is in town, again, and I hadn't recovered from her earlier trip. When I got up this morning, it looked like a makeup store had exploded in my bathroom. You know how snippy she makes me," she sighed.

Bonkers looked at her with big, worried eyes. "Actually I don't…"

"Right, the memory loss thing," she sighed, leaning heavily on the side of the police car. "The forensics team is going to send the remote over to Gyro Gearloose once they're done processing it. I'm told if anyone can fix it, he can."

"That's right, he's great!" Bonkers agreed.

"Let's just try to keep it on the down low for the time being. We want to make a good impression on this team, and I'm not sure how they'd respond to you having five-year's amnesia," Miranda said to Bonkers with a sort of quiet resignation in her voice.

Eventually, a woman and a Toon approached their car. "Miranda Wright and… Bonkers, I presume?" the woman said. She was Miranda's height, weight, and build. Her skin was a beautiful glowing tan, and she had black hair in many little tight curls. She was dressed stylishly, with an overly long dress-shirt and leggings. Her face was set in a hostile expression. Walking with her was a blue Toon bulldog. He was about Bonkers' height, broadly built, wearing a bowler hat and vest. The end of a lollipop hung out of his mouth. It was as if this team from New York had been specifically chosen to be mirrors to the California team.

"I'm Angelica Vela. This is Tombs," she said, gesturing to the bulldog. "We're here for our training." She looked over the squad car. "We have to ride in the back?"

"There weren't any 'regular' cars or vans that weren't already reserved for this morning, and they didn't think it would be very professional to use my personal Jeep," Miranda informed them, opening the door while Bonkers struggled to get their heavy luggage into the trunk. "We'll take you to the long-term stay hotel the department has reserved for you and you can spend the rest of the day getting some rest. Bonkers and I have some things to look into this afternoon, so we can start your training tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Angelica snorted. "Tombs and I don't need time to sit around sweating it out in this weather. We can change into our uniforms and follow you." Internally, Miranda cringed as she slid behind the wheel. Bonkers joined her in front. She would have preferred to continue dealing with the remote, and Bonkers' memory loss, but couldn't do that discretely with the two tag-alongs.

Elsewhere, Jitters reported in to work with a spring in his step and a whistle in his voice. As he was going about setting up for the day, Tony couldn't help but notice his good mood. "Hey, look at that, Jitters is smiling! Something real good must have happened last night, hey?"

"My gig went really well, the manager and I are going to hash out additional performance dates later this week," he answered. Even his enthusiastic voice was rather quiet and restrained, especially for a Toon. "Alex wasn't working, but she sent me a very nice apology present."

"Ah, right. Alex is the gorilla girl you told me about, the one who works as a bouncer at the club. The one my little friend has a little crush on," he grinned, lightly ribbing Jitters. Jitters turned orange again.

"Alex is just a friend… I'm too small for a girl like her."

Tony laughed and clapped a hand on Jitter's shoulder. "My friend, haven't you heard it isn't the size that matters, but what you do with it?" He continued laughing and shook his head as he went to set up the till.

Jitters elevated mood seemed to translate into his cooking, as Tony had never gotten so many compliments on the flavor in one day. He called each compliment to the back, and Jitters seemed to get lighter and lighter with every bit of praise. Tony was happy. If there was a Toon out there who needed a well-deserved self-esteem boost, it was Jitters.

Between the lunch rush and when the mid-afternoon snack seekers came out, Tony and Jitters enjoyed a bit of downtime. Tony told Jitters about how his family in Ohio was doing, Jitters told Tony about his gig. They were chatting back and forth when Jitters made an unusual, timid request. "Um, Tony? I… I'm working on a new song, and I just can't quite get it to where I'm happy with it. Can I… can I sing it for you? Maybe you can hear what I'm missing…"

"I've never heard you sign a full song before, but I enjoy it when you hum as you work. We don't have anyone at the window right now, go ahead."

Jitters took a deep, nervous breath. He wasn't used to singing things that weren't complete, especially in front of someone he considered to be a friend.

"They say that trouble comes in threes, but I say it comes in twos, I'm always in trouble, when it's me and yous. You're every place I turn and every step I take, I hear your voice and see your eyes and know it's a big mistake. That's why I sing the bobcat blues. The bobcat blues, song of me and yous!" He stopped and frowned. "Not very good, is it?"

"Eh, it's a work in progress," Tony shrugged. "Why the bobcat blues?"

"Long story," Jitters said. At that moment, a second rush of customers approached the truck. Jitters and Tony abandoned the conversation to focus on working through the line. When the line was complete, Tony seemed to have forgotten all about the song, choosing instead to focus on complaining about the most recent in Tony's string of bad girlfriends. They were so engrossed in their friendly conversation that they were completely caught off guard when the back door of the truck was yanked open.

CHIBI-JITTERS PLAYS HIS GUITAR

"We'll be right back!"


End file.
